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petra is back on form!!! yeaa!! more so the confidence and the focus looks like its returned again. shaping up to be a contender at the rest of the majors this year.

some controversy this week though with sveta kuznetsova...so much so that it even left serena williams befuddled. apparently she as well as many others were left wondering why sveta wasn't offered a w/c for dubai given that she's returning from a long injury lay-off instead of relegating her to qualies.

seriously,he is some piece of work. even worse the chair umpire that caved into the two of them and their bully tactics,not to mention the security that tried to escort him out of the stadium. caroline not only should have been given a point penalty but her dad should have been forced to leave instead of they giving in. just terrible sportsmanship and decorum from these two.

HUGE win for Nole today to end Rafa's amazing streak at Monte Carlo, and it certainly adds a certain level of interest and unpredictability to the clay season!

__________________Fashion: Don’t you recognize me? Death: You should know that I don’t see very well and I can’t wear glasses. Fashion: I’m Fashion, your sister. Death: My sister? Fashion: Yes. You and I together keep undoing and changing things down here on earth although you go about it in one way and I another. Giacomo Leopardi, “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death.”abridged

LANDISVILLE, Pa. — There were a lot of tennis tournament essentials missing on Sunday at the $10,000 U.S.T.A. Pro Circuit tournament at Hempfield Recreation Center here.

There were no ball girls or boys. No line judges. No chair umpire. No electronic scoreboard.

But there was a woman who was ranked No. 20 in world in singles and No. 10 in doubles a little more than two years ago.

In May 2011, two months after reaching those career highs, Alisa Kleybanova, then 21, received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that forced her off the tour.

She beat the disease, a triumph more important than victories over the former No. 1s Kim Clijsters and Jelena Jankovic.

Kleybanova tried a comeback just 10 months after receiving her diagnosis, accepting a wild card into the tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla., in March 2012. She won her first-round match against 64th-ranked Johanna Larsson. But after losing her next match, to 22nd-ranked Maria Kirilenko, she began to realize that her body was not ready for such a high level of competition.

“My body just gave up, because I wasn’t physically ready to do that,” Kleybanova said. “Basically, the match I won with Larsson, I was going way far over my limits.

“I was completely exhausted way before we finished the match. I basically had so much will that I mentally overpowered that match.”

For the next year, Kleybanova dedicated herself to training, not competing. But she is playing this week to maintain her eligibility for a protected ranking.

Because she is playing, she will be able to enter as many as eight tournaments using the ranking of 22 that she had at the time of her diagnosis.

Kleybanova picked Landisville because she correctly thought higher-ranked players would be playing in Europe, allowing her to qualify for the field and play against less-threatening competition. Her first-round match was against an 18-year-old Australian, Brooke Rischbieth, ranked No. 1,149 in the world.

Kleybanova won convincingly, 6-1, 6-1. She was not as quick or consistent as she had previously been, but nearly any time she hit the ball with conviction, Rischbieth could not send it back across the net.

“I got taught a lesson on tennis today,” Rischbieth said in a Twitter message after the match.

Kleybanova won two more routine matches to qualify for the main draw. She will play Jacqueline Wu, an unranked American, in the first round of the main draw Wednesday night.

The matches in Landisville were a far cry from her fourth-round match with Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2008. Kleybanova had to fetch her own balls, call her own lines and keep her own score.

In the match preceding Kleybanova’s, the players twice met at the net to argue line calls and even the score itself. For Kleybanova, play was often delayed when a ball bounced into a cluster of shrubbery, with the player nearest having to forage through the leaves.

Kleybanova had not played in such a low-level tournament since she was 14. In the fifth tournament of her professional career, she won a main draw match at the prestigious Indian Wells event and did not look back.

Still, this step down served to relax Kleybanova, who likened the atmosphere to a practice session.

“The girl was trying hard today; she gave me some trouble as well during the points,” Kleybanova said. “But when you’re playing at this level, for me, it’s always a few important points during the set that you have to make, and then the set is yours. It’s not the time when you have to give 100 percent every point.”

For her three qualifying wins, Kleybanova pocketed $104 in prize money. The tournament’s eventual champion will receive just 18 ranking points and $1,440.

It is different this week in Rome, a tournament Kleybanova played shortly before receiving her diagnosis two years ago. A player who wins just one main draw match there will earn 70 ranking points and roughly $13,000. The champion in Rome will claim 900 ranking points and roughly $444,000.

Kleybanova, who has earned more than $2 million in her career, said she had enough saved to not have to worry about prize money during this stage of her comeback.

“When I’m feeling good, I’m going to start playing big ones, get my ranking up, and there the prize money is going to come,” she said.

The one thing she did have to worry about Sunday was the four balls that were allotted for the match. As the winner, she had the duty of returning all four to the tournament referee’s desk. After some digging through the shrubs, she found them and walked off court a winner.

*nytimes.com

it's too bad she wasn't automatically eligible for a protected ranking despite being unranked. but it seems alisa is taking this road back slowly and steadily....focusing on getting back into competitive form rather than looking for wins. she's supposed to also be playing some WTT this summer as well. it's just great to have alisa back healthy.

On the ladies' side, anyone but Serena. I am tired of her winning. Someone else please!!

__________________Fashion: Don’t you recognize me? Death: You should know that I don’t see very well and I can’t wear glasses. Fashion: I’m Fashion, your sister. Death: My sister? Fashion: Yes. You and I together keep undoing and changing things down here on earth although you go about it in one way and I another. Giacomo Leopardi, “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death.”abridged

haha....and all the needling high school drama from she and maria over the weekend plus the other stuff revealed last week from rolling stone....i'm bored with both,frankly.

really iffy day though from vika with the knee....and then seeing petra kvitova being forced to call the trainer for a lower back issue....i don't have high hopes for petra this year. really loved the way kristina mladenovic played today against maria...rare sight to see women players not getting broken for an entire set which went to a tie-break. a lot of potential the young frenchwoman...but needs to improve that backhand more.

was hoping that jamie hampton,who i've become big fan of now,would have carried that momentum from the weekend at eastbourne(where she had to go through qualies and then knocked out aga and caro) in her first round but i was surprised that sloane played such a high level today given her struggles since australia. still,jamie has a lot to be proud of...she made her first-ever tour-level final(which i think sloane has yet to accomplish despite her higher rank) and has steadily risen since brussels prior to RG....now top 25 and beaten three top 10 players in a matter of weeks. should be able to get seeded now come the summer HC season.

and rafa today....wow. just got outplayed today by darcis whose game really adapts well to grass. and for rafa's form,likely a symptom of no grass preparation....opting not to play a grass tune-up like the queens event where he usually participates. before today his last match on grass was the loss to rosol last year. definitely rusty in the movement and the way the ball bounces off the court today.

__________________Fashion: Don’t you recognize me? Death: You should know that I don’t see very well and I can’t wear glasses. Fashion: I’m Fashion, your sister. Death: My sister? Fashion: Yes. You and I together keep undoing and changing things down here on earth although you go about it in one way and I another. Giacomo Leopardi, “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death.”abridged

and j-w tsonga retired. and petra kvitova got a walkover from shvedova as well. strange day,indeed. and for petra,with azarenka pulling out and sharapova losing,that opens her draw considerably. maybe i should re-think my initial feelings about her chances. she could very well make the final again!